


Differences of Opinion

by entanglednow



Category: Psych
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-18
Updated: 2009-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:06:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How can you protect me properly if you're next door?" Shawn hopes his voice conveys how ludicrous this is. "Protect and serve Lassie, protect and serve."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Differences of Opinion

The hotel room doesn't make Shawn happy.

Oh to the casual observer it's tidy enough, the disguise thrown over the top of it wants for all the world to give the impression of comfortably clean. It even smells vaguely of shoe polish and lemons.

But there are fingerprints on highly suspicious parts of the wall, a fading shoe print on the seat of the chair and the cover on the bed is frayed at the bottom where someone's shoe heels have slowly rubbed it thin.

"I'm not feeling good psychic vibrations from this room," Shawn says carefully. He waggles his fingers as if he's channelling some sort of disturbing otherworldly unpleasantness, when really he's just afraid to touch anything.

Lassiter dumps Shawn's jacket in his outstretched arms. He immediately huffs and throws it back over his own head. His stroll across the room tells him more things that make him unhappy, faint bare patches in the carpet in unfortunate places, and the seedy little window has a hand print on it. Which he's not going to look at too closely for fear of certain unwelcome images being seared onto his brain for the rest of time.

The bathroom is tiny and there's a stain on the wall that suggests the sink can provide geyser like levels of enthusiasm and destruction. Shawn's judged the direction pretty well and he thinks he can get away without ruining his shirt, or his dignity, If absolutely necessary. Until then it's sensible to just avoid the bathroom altogether.

Lassiter has moved from his position and he's now standing by the table, glaring at the decor, like it's being hideous purposely to ruin his day. Possibly in some universe it is?

"I can't help but get the impression that the SBPD just doesn't appreciate me as much as I thought," Shawn manages to include the whole room in his level of hurt.

"Spencer if nothing else they probably appreciate the fact that you're not there right now."

"You wound me Lassie, really you do." Which is true, Shawn feels wounded, because he's awesome company. Interesting things happen around him _literally_ all the time.

"In fact I can't help but wish you were there being appreciated right now," Lassiter says bluntly.

"Sarcasm is the refuge of a narrow mind."

Lassiter glares at him. Then ignores him in favour of... _leaving._

"Where are you going?"

"To my room, which is next door, where I will remain until tomorrow, where you will not come and disturb me."

Shawn pulls a face of abandonment, is disappointed, but not surprised, when Lassiter blatantly ignores it.

"How can you protect me properly if you're next door?" Shawn hopes his voice conveys how ludicrous this is. "Protect and serve Lassie, protect and serve." He puts a hand out and displays his best 'haunted victim' expression. But Lassiter is a hard sell, a very hard sell.

"Spencer the only thing that poses a danger to you right this second is yourself."

Shawn pushes the expression just a little bit harder.

"And possibly me," Lassiter adds.

"Now that's just cruel, I'm hurt, I'm hurt we can't spend time together without threats of physical violence."

Lassiter throws his jacket at him again, and this time it manages to land with unerring accuracy on his face.

"Ow," he drags it free. "Can I order room service?"

The door thumps shut with rather pointed finality.

The room is actually quite dull underneath its fake cleanness and vague suggestions of debauchery, it's not even interesting enough to have character.

Shawn picks up the phone.

He calls room service, who seem willing to cater to his every whim. More so with a little persuasion and embellishment and the occasional flair of dramatic interpretation. Really, telling people the truth is so boring.

Then he calls Gus,

Shawn uses his favourite Plan A 'convince Gus to do stuff.' It's one of his favourite plans. Gus will, of course, protest repeatedly- because he wouldn't be Gus if he didn't, he'd be some terrifying pod person- Gus will protest and Shawn will convince him why it's an awesome idea because Shawn knows that Gus is willing to be prodded for however long he's on the other end of the phone for.

Gus stays on the phone for exactly as long as it takes for Shawn to convince him to do at least seventy percent of the things he wants- when really he would have been satisfied with fifty, maybe forty percent- it's more than long enough for Shawn to realise he really is stupidly, ridiculously lucky to have Gus.

He should tell him more often, maybe leave him little notes. Maybe he should leave them places while he's sleeping, because freaking Gus out while at the same time reassuring him that he is _the man._ That's the sort of 'two birds with one stone' scenario that pithy sayings were made for.

~~~

  
Shawn's door thumps open _exactly_ on cue.

"Stop sending things to my room!" Lassiter snaps in a voice that's low and threatening and immensely frustrated. Shawn gets just the tiniest frissom of triumph at the fact that he's stormed back in here.

"And will you stop eating those!"

"They're complimentary," Shawn waved a finger at him. "That means free!"

"I know what it means!" Lassiter's voice is tight "And I'm not sure how you managed it but I'm fairly certain it was 'dubiously' so put it down!"

"Eugh aggan inishd et!"

"I don't care," Lassiter says flatly.

Shawn makes a long suffering noise and drops the prawn he's holding. It's hard to have a sensible conversation when there are an overwhelming amount of prawns present. You'd think seafood would be more conducive to serious and measured conversation. Who knew?

Lassiter's clearly rethinking the whole 'better off not knowing' philosophy.

"What lies did you tell them to get all that stuff anyway?"

Shawn surveyed his hoard of foodstuffs and foliage, chewing his way through a thought. Exactly how annoyed would the answer to that question make Lassiter? And should he have a good view for it? He decided yes, and swivelled round on the bed.

"I told them we were married," Shawn provides, with just the right amount of casual banality.

"You did what?" Lassiter's face is mixture of anger and disbelief, it's a familiar, comfortable sort of expression that Shawn would miss if he didn't get to see it.

He nods.

"I weighed up your hard, and sometimes frigid exterior, against complimentary prawns and decided you were worth it Lassie!"

Shawn marvels at Lassiter's self control, because he's quite clear _not_ currently being strangled.

"If you seriously think you're going to fool anyone-"

"Oh I already did," Shawn told him. "The manager thinks I can do better."

Lassiter fixes him with a mildly infuriated glare. Shawn likes to think he knows all of Lassiter's levels of infuriated. This one's sort of warm citrus.

"I told him about your need to control absolutely everything in our relationship. Which, in this scenario, I think makes you the girl," Shawn says, around some unidentifiable piece of seafood. Which begs the question...was it actually seafood if he couldn’t identify it? See-food? See-food, or not see-food?

"I am not the girl!" Lassiter protests.

"You're the one who insists on doing everything your way, you're the one that can never quite decide what to do, you're the one that worries."

"That's because I'm right and you're an idiot, that's not because I'm a girl!"

"You never want to do anything fun," Shawn continues. "And you're always pulling that face-"

"What face?"

Shawn points without looking up.

"That face. It curtails fun before it's even had the chance to blossom into something meaningful."

"That's because I'm the voice of reason that may occasionally manage to be heard over the sound of crazy coming out of your brain."

Shawn's rather fond of the crazy that lives in his brain, but isn't sure admitting to it will help his case much.

"Lassie you are not the voice of reason, you are the voice of cynicism, you are that voice that puts a sharp halt to fun-having and good times. You should know that you can have fun too. If at any point in time you feel like having fun I would be more than happy to oblige. You just let me know." Shawn would drop everything really, even if he was holding priceless breakable things. Drop them, or move them to the nearest handy flat surface. Depending on whether time was an issue.

"Go downstairs right this minute and tell them we're not married," Lassiter commands. He even points a finger, in some general direction, if you wanted someone to go downstairs wouldn't you point down? Spatial dynamics is clearly not Lassiter's strong point.

Shawn throws him his best 'I'm shocked and hurt by your suggestion' face. He's had a lot of practice at that face.

"Lassie."

Lassiter points the finger at him that time.

"No, no stupid nicknames!"

"Do you really want the nice hotel staff to know we're fighting?" Shawn says sensibly.

"Spencer if you don't go downstairs right this minute-."

"Frankly they're amazed I put up with you," Shawn continues. "You're kind of mean."

"Now Spencer!"

Their faux marital dispute is interrupted by a knock on the door.

Lassiter tugs it open before Shawn can reach it. Possibly in the hope that his sensible exterior, which is currently radiating angry displeasure, can stop any craziness before it has a chance to expand, evolve, and become something beautiful.

He really should know Shawn better by now.

The trolley-wielding boy outside the door wears his entire life on the outside. Shawn finds the many tiny details of him briefly interesting. The various exciting platters of fruit come a close second.

"What did I tell you about ordering more stuff?"

Shawn flings him a hurt look, resists the urge to hoard as much as possible before Lassiter forces him to relinquish it all.

"You really do never want me to have _anything_ nice do you?"

The boy at the trolley- Shawn is fairly certain his name is either Steve, or Sam- looks between them, he's much smarter than his hideous red and blue uniform would suggest.

"We're not married," Lassiter declares angrily.

Shawn sighs, in a way that sounds perfectly forlorn, throws the trolley wielding boy a helpless 'see what I have to deal with,' sort of look. It gets him a not-at-all surprising look of sympathy, and gets Lassiter a barely disguised expression of offended disapproval.

"It's his fault, he's deluded!" Lassiter accuses.

"Y'know it seems like you're always thinking up new ways to call me crazy." There's a tiny bite of honest annoyance under there but then the best lies are spun out of tiny little truths, everyone knows that.

"That's because you are."

Shawn eats a piece of apple in a disconsolate sort of way.

"I'm sorry if my eccentricity leads to a phenomenal number of closed cases. I can't help it if that makes you feel insecure."

Lassiter snaps one of the lids on the dishes, narrowly missing Shawn's fingers. Narrowly.

"If you think for one minute-"

Shawn clears his throat, in a 'we have company' sort of way.

The trolley boy clearly finds Lassiter's fury an overreaction.

Shawn doesn't even have to do anything, Lassiter has made Steve the trolley-boy an enemy for life without him doing a thing. He'd give himself a tiny round of applause if it wouldn’t have ruined the moment.

"I didn't sign up for any of this," Lassiter says fiercely.

"Well I'm sorry but now you've got it," Shawn declares theatrically, just before Lassiter can drive Steve from the room by sheer force of personality and shove the door shut.

Shawn's getting so many bonus points with the people downstairs, he can hear the angry wheel-wheel-squeak of the trolley where it's being trundled down the corridor.

"You realise if I wasn't determined not to cheat on you I could be getting so much sympathy sex right now- oh! papaya! Man's best friend, man's best fruit friend."

Lassiter is briefly background angry simmering, because the fruit really is very good. This is the sort of fruit you should be allowed to pack onto a hat and steal away with.

"Also, you're still clearly the girl."

"I'm four inches taller than you, I am not the girl."

"Four inches is a little generous, four inches in heels maybe, and oooh that's a strange and interesting brain space there. I once dated a woman four inches taller than me, oddly enough she was still the girl."

Lassiter scowls at him.

"Why am I even talking to you?"

"You have sauce on you," Shawn says helpfully.

Lassiter looks down, then looks up and snarls, honest to god _snarls_ at him.

It's kind of dirty and Shawn approves.

He's half tempted to growl back but he thinks it might be taken the wrong way.

"You might want to wash that off straight away."

Lassiter briefly looks like he's going to explode. It's an interesting look for him. Not very flattering but kind of psychotic.

He turns, without a word, and stomps off to the bathroom.

Shawn collects as much fruit as he can physically carry in his arms and goes back to the bed, sprawls himself there like a fruit emperor and finds what he was flipping through earlier.

Shawn manages to turn a page without getting fruity fingerprints on the folder or the paper.

"You're still the girl," he mutters to the empty room.

A second later there's the sound of a tap furiously spraying everything within range.

Shawn likes to think he can hear the sound of smouldering over the quiet sound of dripping.

  
~~~

Lassiter quietly fumes into the bathroom mirror, while water drips down the wall, and the mirror and off of his own shirt.

He breathes carefully and counts to twenty. Convinces himself that terrible retribution on Spencer won't help the situation at all.

It takes a while.

Then he stomps out of the bathroom.

"Boy aren't you glad you brought a spare shirt," Spencer says without looking up. Lassiter is horribly tempted to strangle him, but is absolutely certain it wouldn't make him feel better in the slightest.

Not for more than a minute or so anyway.

Shawn flicks a page, a page that looks horribly familiar.

"What is that?"

Shawn briefly holds it up, as if it's a particularly interesting spoil of war.

"It may or may not be the case file, may, or may not. In this case...may?"

Lassiter holds a hand out.

"Give it back?"

"I haven't finished perusing it and forming important opinions," Shawn protests and slides it forward on the bed,

Lassiter uses his height to stretch over and catch the corner of it.

Shawn reacts by sliding it out of his grip.

"Lassie I have a right to opinions on the case, my opinions are of the utmost importance!"

"Give!" Lassiter demands and catches hold of Shawn's sleeve, leaving his other arm flailing upwards with a mess of paper.

"No," Shawn says simply, which was repeated, albeit less emphatically, when Lassiter twisted one of his arms behind his back. "Didn't your parents ever teach you that winning an argument using physical violence is wrong?"

There's probably more, there's always more, Spencer has a useless litany of words for every occasion, ready to be strung together in random and infuriating ways at a moments notice. But Lassiter doesn't want to hear them.

Shawn throws a handful of grapes at him.

Which manages to be, for reasons unknown, the most infuriating thing ever.

Lassiter grabs a handful of material and pulls.

"Wha- Hey!"

The sheets, the abandoned tray, a torrent of fruit, the file, and Spencer are now a tumbled mess half off of the bed and the remote is briefly a curve of plastic two inches in front of Spencer's nose.

Which he lunges for.

Lassiter halts the movement by twisting him round, dragging his arms down and pinning them against the edge of the bed. There's an irritated huff of air and a movement that suggests Spencer thinks he's going to get out of it easily enough. Lassiter makes that considerably more difficult by pinning him there with his own body weight.

He's distantly aware that this is now a whole world past inappropriate. It's adrenaline and stubbornness and triumph, and the lingering realisation that if shaking Spencer until he breaks isn't an option then there is a viable alternative.

And isn't that a polite way of describing something pretty damn obscene.

"Okay," Shawn says against the edge of his mouth, like he's agreeing to something Lassiter wasn't even aware he'd asked. "Okay this is good too."

He realises exactly what Shawn is mumbling about when he kisses him. No hesitation just a shameless press of mouth that's an assumption and a liberty at the same time. Because, though Lassiter will admit he was probably thinking about it first, he wasn't going to actually- he wasn't-

He realises, belatedly that he's let go of Spencer's arms in surprise. He thinks he should probably try and get them back. But Shawn is already dragging his shirt out of his pants, mouth open at the edge of his neck like some sort of distraction.

But it's nothing like his usual distraction and Lassiter is still trying to find sort of resistance.

"Can I actually get this off without taking the holster off first? Does the holster even come off- Oh! No scratch that, leave it on because that's filthy!" Lassiter is going to protest, he is. But Shawn is, as usual, infuriatingly good at using his mouth to destroy all of Lassiter's intentions.

He's no longer wearing a belt and something clanks loudly when Shawn puts his knee in it.

He should say no.

He should say no _now._

"You could say no," Shawn says in what sounds disturbingly like a sensible tone of voice, and Lassiter is briefly disturbed by the thought that Shawn is now apparently reading his mind. "You could and I'm sure you'd derive some sort of hollow satisfaction out of the moral high ground. Or you could continue to mistreat me over the remains of my ridiculously expensive lunch. Which normally I would protest about but since it's you...." he makes a soft noise at the end, like that's all the explanation he needs to give.

Shawn is even more annoying when he makes sense.

"You'd be amazed at the things I'd let you get away with."

And that sounds honest, it sounds disturbingly, jarringly, honest, but that means nothing, because Spencer lies like it's breathing.

Lassiter breathes annoyance and frustration into his mouth.

"You're the most infuriating-"

Spencer's fingers get a grip on the side of his face, pull him back in, and then Lassiter can't talk at all.

He kisses like he's just been waiting for the opportunity.

Lassiter suspects he's kneeling on a fork but somehow that doesn't seem quite as important as it did a moment ago.

"Spencer-"

"Shawn," he's told, a second before fingers dig into his lower back, making his brain take a moment to gather enough insistence that over-familiarity is a stupid idea, something he doesn't want, can't-

"I'm not going to-"

"Shawn," Shawn insists and does something horribly unfair with his hands.

It's hard to think for a second. Though he has enough brain power to realise that Shawn is winning whatever the hell this is, and that is unacceptable.

Lassiter's tug open the buttons on Shawn's jeans in one angry movement.

"Oh," Shawn's voice is wet surprise, though he doesn't object to being pressed into the end of the bed, open jeans barely hanging on the edge of his hips.

This is insane, this is worse than insane, this is what happens _after_ you go insane.

Trying to pull himself back from the edge is impossible.

Though Shawn isn't protesting, which just makes it worse. He is, in fact, all encouragement and dare and _noises._ Broken little noises too greedy and impatient to be smug and that really shouldn't be a comfort but feels like one anyway.

Which is probably the reason Lassiter is- mistreating him is perhaps the only civilised way to describe what he's doing- Shawn is making breathless little half noises into the edge of Lassiter's jaw, noises that vibrate all the way through the skin, broken bits and pieces of words. They're appreciative and amused and Lassiter can't help but think they're the wordless equivalent of _about damn time_.

Something clatters off of the bed in a slide of sheets and Shawn proves he knows perfectly well how to remove a holster and Lassiter doesn't miss the way he stretches out far enough to leave it on the chair, hung over the edge where it can still be reached if absolutely necessary. Then Shawn steals his shirt, throws it over his head and it flutters whitely over the headboard.

He's going to say...something. But Shawn's nails dig into his back, drag him all the way in, he makes a noise of appreciation when they shove together, and this is considerably closer than Lassiter ever expected to get to Shawn Spencer. He can't quite make his hands stop sliding into the loose edge of his jeans, taking the fabric with them. Shawn's agreeable noises go low and soft and _certain._ The parts of Lassiter's brain which are sure this is the wrongest thing he's ever done have never been quite this loud. But he's finding it horribly easy to ignore them. The way Shawn's hand is twisted into the material of his pants, holding him close enough that every push and shift tells him exactly how much he's enjoying this. That doesn't help at all. That makes it worse, makes it more wrong, if that's even possible.

"This is a really bad idea," he manages, which is _something_.

"Totally inevitable though," Shawn adds, and then kisses him again before he can provide more evidence. "It's our awesome chemistry."

"We don't have chemistry" Lassiter protests and Shawn laughs into his mouth because he knows it's a lie, and Lassiter knows it's a lie. But hates that it is anyway.

"Really?" It's dubious, drawn out and mocking.

Lassiter makes an angry noise against Shawn's jaw, which gets him a sharply indrawn breath. He's starting to think 'irritated' is not a useful emotion to use at this point in time.

"Tell me you've never once wanted to put me down, make me stay still, make me do as I'm told," Shawn's voice has gone low, until it's just a drag of air in his throat without a hint of amusement and there's something about that rough seriousness which Lassiter has no resistance to.

Shawn makes a noise, something quietly pleased, and impatient, and for a second he's all nails and teeth and searching fingers.

Lassiter thinks now would be a good time to grab his hands and make him stop touching and regain some control of the situation.

Before- before something- probably before Shawn manages to get his hands inside his pants.

And clearly he's already failed at that, because there are already hands in inappropriate places and the quick greedy rush of breath across his mouth.

But when does he ever have control of the situation when Shawn's involved?

The hand in his hair is just a little too tight and he's tempted to find out if Shawn's much longer hair will protest the same treatment but he won't stay still long enough and there are so many places to put his hands. Whether he intends to or not.

"You should take what you want more often," Shawn tells him, and his hands have no business being of the bare edges of Lassiter's hipbones, he's not even sure how they got there, but they are. "You'd be surprised what people would let you have."

He's not certain if that's an admonishment or a hint. Can't quite resist it either way.

"Turn around," he hisses against the warmth of Shawn's mouth. He half expects him to protest, or complain. He gets an incoherent noise instead and Shawn does as he's told. _He does as he's told,_ and Lassiter hates Shawn for being right, but that is exactly, exactly what he wants right this very second.

The fact that he has permission- having permission and taking advantage of that permission are completely different things, but Shawn is shifting through his hands like he can't stay still, and Lassiter has to close his fingers tight and make him stay there for long enough to decide that there's no possible way he isn't going to do this.

For something so stupid it really is far too easy.

There's expensive hotel hand lotion and Shawn is making obscene little noises that sound like they hurt, back flexing under the shoved up edge of his t-shirt. He's all strange edges of soft and hard, it's utterly foreign, and that should bring Lassiter slamming to a halt. But Shawn has apparently broken him.

Broken him _completely_.

When he manages to hold Shawn still long enough to actually press into him he gets a rough exhale, a garbled slur of breathless encouragement. Shawn's back curves under him and he just takes it, takes it all.

Lassiter's world becomes very, very narrow indeed. It's briefly all heat and skin and he isn't prepared for any of it. He has to shove Shawn's shirt up higher, fingers curving round his shoulders and everything is much closer and fiercer than he'd expected it to be. Than it has any right to be.

"Enthusiasm is good," Shawn says thickly and then his voice just breaks into incoherent noises, most of them crushed into the bed.

Lassiter finds enthusiasm is worryingly easy. It's harder to hang on to the edge. Harder to try and pretend he hasn't half wanted to do something an awful lot like this for months. He thinks maybe Shawn has just been waiting for him to catch up.

Shawn has his eyes shut, hands fisted in the sheet, and he's making stunned, hoarse noises on every push. Half desperation and half refusal.

Lassiter is going to leave bruises on Shawn's skin, and that's strangely, jarringly, what shoves him all the way over the edge.

Shawn makes a ragged noise of relief and shudders through his own orgasm like it hurts.

They end up in a tangle of sheets and limbs on the hotel room floor.

Shawn is hot and he fidgets. But Lassiter doesn't have the energy to make him stop. Also, he suspects it's going to be much harder to make Shawn do as he'd told now. He thinks he just lost a lot of his 'sensible adult' privileges.

"I like the way you're narrow and serious. I always thought you'd have narrow and serious sex, but you're actually kind of dirty," Shawn sounds like he approves.

Lassiter makes a vague noise in his general direction which means nothing at all.

If he was ever going to delude himself into thinking this was just a random one off moment of utter madness it would probably be now. He has a horrible feeling that Shawn Spencer will prove himself to be addictive, and the most sensible course of action would probably be to avoid absolutely any further contact with him.

But he gets the feeling trying to convince Shawn of that will be an exercise in futility.

He can't say he's entirely upset about that.

There's a very long silence, but Lassiter knows Shawn well enough to know he's on the edge of something, waiting for just the right point to jump off.

"You realise now we can't have a fake annulment."


End file.
